Measurement of coherent surface acoustic wave attenuation in polycrystalline aluminum

Attenuation of Rayleigh-type surface acoustic waves induced by grain-boundary scattering is studied experimentally and theoretically by an effective medium approach. A frequency domain opto-acoustic laboratory setup, capable of measuring a coherent Rayleigh wave response by emulating an ensemble average via spatial averaging, is presented. Measurements are conducted on polycrystalline aluminum at ultrasonic frequencies from 10 MHz to 130 MHz. A constant effective phase velocity of 2893 m s−1 is found below 80 MHz. The effective attenuation coefficient varies in the whole frequency range by nearly two orders of magnitude, and shows classical scattering behavior, comprising stochastic and geometric scattering regimes. A semi-analytical attenuation model is presented, valid below the geometric limit. The model incorporates the material’s spatial two-point correlation function obtained from metallurgical micrographs. Comparisons to experimentally obtained attenuation coefficients show good quantitative agreement, with differences in the frequency power-law dependence. This study attempts to elucidate microstructure induced surface acoustic wave attenuation experimentally by means of a statistical approach. The proposed method and the obtained findings contribute to the understanding of wave propagation in heterogeneous media, and promote the use of surface acoustic waves in non-destructive microstructure characterization.